


hear me, see me, feel me

by belovedyuuri (belovedstill)



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Burn Out, Canon Compliant, M/M, POV Victor Nikiforov, Pre-Relationship, Summer of mutual pining, even if it's just for 5 minutes, just a tiny bit if you squint, real talk friends - if you're feeling burnt out please take care of yourself, take breaks and take deep breaths and do something that relaxes you, this piece celebrates silence and soothing sounds, you deserve that break
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-07
Updated: 2019-06-07
Packaged: 2020-04-12 10:31:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19130230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/belovedstill/pseuds/belovedyuuri
Summary: Sometimes, the world is loud, overwhelmingly so; it steals your thoughts, your focus, your whole being. (Don't let it get to you.)The world has been after Viktor his whole life, tugging at his sanity and testing his limits—until, one day, one Katsuki Yuuri makes himself heard.And, suddenly, everythingstops.





	hear me, see me, feel me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Littorella](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Littorella/gifts).



> This fic is part of my collab with Littorella! You can find Alli [here](https://littorella.tumblr.com/). Check out her absolutely amazing art for this collab, you'll find it at the end of this piece and [on tumblr](https://belovedyuuri.tumblr.com/post/185438365618/littorella-collab-with-the-most-talented), I can't stop looking at it <333 I can't believe. I just can't believe how awesome you are, Alli, and how beautiful your art is. And this very piece speaks to my soul *cries*
> 
> I just checked when I started writing this piece and holy heck, we agreed to work on this collab in May 2018. It's been _over a year,_ h o w.
> 
> I hope you enjoy <3

 

_ hearing _

 

Music and the skates cutting the ice as he goes – these are all the sound Viktor knows. The air drumming, vibrating with one song after the other until it creates an illusion of a heartbeat for him to live off of to. If it's not music then it's the chatter of the TV in the background, the noise of crowds cheering, calling, screaming.

“Viktor!” he hears.

“Another gold for the two-time champion—”

“—third consecutive win—”

“—fourth gold in the Grand Prix series—”

“—five-time consecutive gold—”

“—expected nothing less!”

“I love him!”

“Mr. Nikiforov, if you please—”

“Retirement? He's getting—”

“What are your plans for the next—”

“Viktor, will you finally start listening?!”

But he  _ has _ been listening all this time, has been listening all his life. People talk, audiences scream, the press demands, Yakov yells—and then the press talks and audiences demand and Yakov screams and people cheer and it's never any other combination, hasn't he listened well enough?

At this point, he's heard the Russian national anthem far too often, more than it's necessary, more than even the national pride calls for.

And the rest of the world—there's no  _ rest of the world, _ the world is loud, its borders are blurred with the static noise of midnight news about yet another wave of refugees denied, yet another set of laws making countries unlivable, more people dying, more catastrophes happening—global warming, see?  _ He's  _ listening—more and more and less and less—and follow  _ these _ instructions if you want to be desired—and follow  _ these _ to be accepted—but be yourself at the same time—Mr. Nikiforov, do you have any advice for the young people who look up to you?

“Don't give up and be yourself,” he says and it's understood as two separate things but no, it's a continuum,  _ he's _ listening, why isn't he listened  _ to? _

“Dance with me, Viktor!”

 

And for a moment—

 

—music is all he can hear

 

fast and drunk and full of life

 

and slow and clear and dreamlike

 

people chatter in the background and cameras flash and somebody is yelling, he's sure—

 

the music mutes it all, though, unlike ever before

 

the noise is still there, he's still aware of it, but it's shocked into the back of his mind

 

Foreign words join the music at one point, disrupting the peace in the best way possible; noise, but pleasant. Noise, but—not a noise at all. Waves crash between drunken Japanese syllables and Viktor wants to trap the sound in his mind forever—

It's all over by the time he actually tries.

But he learns.

Katsuki Yuuri is his name; he opens Viktor's ears to silence for the first time in his life. Silence, Viktor learns, is not really the absence of all sounds but rather the peace that comes with focusing on them.

Calm. Mindful. Free.

There's grating silence that's less than pleasant, like the quiet of an empty apartment, with Makkachin still at the dogsitter’s. Or a months-long absence of a call he's waiting for. What comes afterward makes suffering through it worth it.

The hum of blood gently rushing through his skin when he holds his hands over his ears. That's silence. It sounds of a distant ocean not unlike the echoes of holding a seashell against the ear. When finally, finally he lets his hands fall to his sides, the quiet remains, like background music always present.

The Hasetsu ocean licks at his bare feet with every rustling tide. He breathes in the breeze it carries; relief tastes of sea salt on his tongue.

“Better?” Yuuri asks, sat by his side with Makkachin half in his lap.

(“Are you okay?” Yuuri asked earlier that day, mid-breakfast, his fingers curling and uncurling hesitantly around his chopsticks.

Bashfulness mixed with embarrassment in Viktor’s stomach. He never meant to let Yuuri  _ see. _ He ducked his head and sighed with a half-hearted smile. “It's very loud in my head right now,” he told him, ready for confusion to be his only reply.

But Yuuri—Yuuri looked at him with such sympathy, as though he understood what Viktor meant. He put his chopsticks down and said, “Come with me.”)

(And Viktor did.)

They're sitting on the sand, the three of them—Viktor, Yuuri, and Makkachin—far from the outside world. A seashell of their own, Viktor thinks with a smile, where the only cries are those of the seagulls.

“Better.”

 

_ sight _

 

When Viktor was 25, the world was dead. He knew everything it had to offer. It was predictable; the world was so small, filled to the brim, no room left for new experiences – how was he supposed to keep his fascination with it alive?

The colours were either underwhelming or overwhelming, chaotic,  _ loud, _ there was no in-between. Everywhere he went, nothing but bricks greeted him, nothing for him to add to. How could he continue to draw inspiration from something so finite, finished, mulled over and over again until it became grey and thin, used and taken from till nothing spectacular was left anymore?

Viktor Nikiforov, reduced to abstract themes in his programs, only because his sight failed him.

The younger skaters seemed to know something Viktor hadn’t been told; they still skated with something that could be called passion. Inspired, but by what? Roses were nothing but blood those days, the sun blinded him when he tried to look towards it for answers, the trees were lifeless and bare. What was it that others saw that he was missing? Maybe he was too—

_ Oh. _

Maybe he was too old now. Was there an expiration date he’d missed?

Wasn’t the Internet full of  _ overwhelming _ and  _ underwhelming _ when it came to him, too? It was always “Viktor Nikiforov, 25, takes third consecutive gold medal at GPF” followed by “Was this season his last?”

At least he wasn’t the only short-sighted here.

People looked at him without seeing and then looked away.

(And that was okay. He'd learned to do that, too.)

His paper calendar kept losing more and more pages, with competitions marked as the only significant dates. Month after month, into the trash they went. What a waste.

And then—

A phone screen. Bright pixels rapidly changing colours to faithfully carry the silent image of a man dancing  _ his _ routine. Familiar, as though those eyes had noticed everything about him.

 

_ Everything. _

Airplanes. A train. An onsen.

 

And ice, all through the spring.

 

Stolen seconds, shadows, moments blurring together as if on fast forward, only to come to a rapid stop at—

There’s a ladybug in Yuuri’s hair and Viktor can’t help but smile.

They’re outside, lying on a blanket in the backyard of Yu-topia A-Katsuki. The sun filters through the trees here, paints everything in a soft glow, splatters the grass with golden spots, as though through a sieve. Even Yuuri’s skating routine notebook, abandoned for the moment, is touched with it; a tiny ray of sunshine falls directly on the page where “4F?” was gingerly written, then erased. The sun knows it was there, though, and highlights the invisible lines imprinted on the paper. You can’t fool the sun.

Yuuri’s lying on his back, eyes closed, one hand under his head, the other over his stomach, keeping his light shirt from the soft, playful wind that’s tried to lift it twice already. His face is smooth, completely neutral. It’s the first time Viktor’s seen him like this.

Yuuri’s so expressive, he’s realised it several days into his stay in Hasetsu. Normally, there’s a slight, nearly unnoticeable tension in the arch of his eyebrows. Worry adds a crinkle in the place above his nose. His jaw tightens when something doesn’t go the way he wants it to; it’s especially present during practice when he sways without meaning to or when a quadruple jump ends up a triple.

When he’s afraid of something, Yuuri’s forehead resembles the ocean waves. When he’s happy or excited, his smile lifts up his cheeks, creating a pair of the most adorable dimples Viktor’s ever seen.

None of that is marring Yuuri’s face now – there’s simply... peace.

This is what he must look like when he’s asleep at night.

...well, without the ladybug in his hair.

Viktor smiles and puts his phone away—he hasn’t been paying any mind to it in the last five minutes anyway—and shifts from his stomach onto his side, head propped on his arm so he can keep looking. And when Yuuri opens his eyes, Viktor’s instinctively fly away—only to slowly return.

“What?” Yuuri asks, and there that peacefulness retreats from his face, kissing rose petals into his cheeks as a goodbye.

_ Nothing, _ Viktor wants to say.

_ Everything. _

_ You’re beautiful. _

What he says instead is, “There’s a ladybug in your hair.” And when Yuuri’s hand jerks up, he shakes his head. “Here, I can remove it for you.”

 

_ touch _

 

Yuuri’s hair is as soft as it looks.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked it! Remember to take breaks, friends, especially if it's finals season for you!
> 
> You can find Alli's tumblr [here](https://littorella.tumblr.com/). And [here](https://belovedyuuri.tumblr.com/) is mine c:
> 
> Thank you for reading <3


End file.
